


Beloved

by Inaccessible Rail (strangetales)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, archive warnings: bisexual david nolan, archive warnings: bisexual killian jones, archive warnings: captain swan is a footnote, archive warnings: lots of exploration of the self, archive warnings: modern college au, archive warnings: this is very much a captain charming fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-08 01:53:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10375242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangetales/pseuds/Inaccessible%20Rail
Summary: David Nolan is in love with Killian Jones. He just doesn’t know what that means.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Captain Charming is a lot you guys. It's a lot canonically, and it's a lot non-canonically, and I will remind you that according to this story in particular our heroes are all college undergraduates and Emma Swan is very much not David Nolan's daughter (and any other weird canon details that would make this fic indescribably odd are not relevant here). I've tagged CS, but it's not the central relationship. It is acknowledged, but make no mistake, this is a CC story!

And did you get what  
you wanted from this life, even so?  
I did.  
And what did you want?  
To call myself beloved, to feel myself  
beloved on the earth.  
\-- Raymond Carver, “Late Fragment”

—

When David Nolan met Killian Jones, it had taken nearly every inch of his rather considerable will to keep from socking the guy across the jaw. He had seemed the infuriatingly smug, disreputable type, and what was worse, seemed to have an uncanny knack for trailing longingly after his sister. Emma Swan wasn’t his sibling by blood, but they had grown up together. His father had simply brought her home one day, and although David could sense an implicit attempt to replace the brother his parents had lost, they had all grown to love her regardless.

David had been able to see it in her eyes sometimes, this desperate, pleading feeling to live up to James’ absence—and while David would have never mentioned this to his parents, he had never really _known_ his brother, but he _had_ known Emma. He had seen her in clumsy, pre-pubescent limbs, all twisted up on the ground, scraped knees, red cheeks, lost teeth. He had seen her in the grips of nightmares he couldn’t imagine, had held her tiny frame with his own gangly limbs, and he had told her, so many times now, had tried to explain to her that she was more a sister to him than his dead brother had ever been. That she had _nothing_ to live up to—that their parents were trapped in their grief, no matter how much they insisted that they were free of James’ echo. 

And he didn’t blame them for it, David; he was an almost irritatingly wise, patient child, and he didn’t fault them for their sadness. But he harbored some degree of anger for the anguish in his sister’s eyes—because she didn’t ask for this, their family, they had brought her here and they didn’t _think_. They didn’t treat her as if she were this separate person who had lived a life before _them_. She had been broken when she arrived, and they should be stitching her together, not keeping all those pieces mismatched and ill-formed; rubbing against one another in a harsh kaleidoscope of painful memories and feelings that all children know but can’t understand, _won’t_ understand, for too many long, confusing years.

So when Killian Jones, mysterious, charismatic, handsome, Killian Jones had wormed his way into their tight-knit circle of friends, he had been understandably concerned. He wore a lot of black and well-worn plaid, kind of like a malnourished extra in a Nirvana video—and his hair was always carefully disheveled (David suspected he spent hours in front of the mirror trying to get it that way). He swore a lot, like an old, gruff sailor on leave. More than Emma, even, and she had developed an extraordinary affinity for swearing, despite his mother’s sweet, but naive, attempts to dissuade her otherwise.

Killian Jones was in love with David’s sister from the very moment he saw her. Everyone could sense it, but David felt it, like a hard blow to the body; a hard-knuckled fist to the kidney. The jewelry, the make-up, it all fell away in the softening of his features, the _genuine_ smile in her presence that revoked all that harsh, predictable cynicism of the “angry young man.”

“I wish you’d just give him a chance,” she had quietly pleaded during a late-night study session. Their books had been scattered between the two of them, empty coffee cups, candy wrappers, apple cores; all the basics. “He’s just lost.”

 _Like me_ , was the silent follow-up, the remark that left his heart soft, like a fresh, newly-fluffed cushion waiting for a new shape to form in all that willing potential. Emma hadn’t even _wanted_ him then, not in that way at least; she had simply wanted a friend that was _hers_. 

“Okay,” he had conceded gently, his heart tightening at the look of relief that crossed her features, “I’ll give him a chance.”

—

David gave Killian Jones the same amount of chances that he would afford anyone else; only Killian Jones met those expectations with a passion and a fury that David had rarely seen or felt. And it wasn’t even as if he were only trying to deserve Emma, which he was, of course, but there was also a sense that he pushed forward, made the difficult choices, did the hard things, for _himself_. It wasn’t an improvement of self merely to satisfy the expectations of someone else, but to be at peace with who he was and who he had become because _who you are_ is _all you have_.

Never in a million years had David Nolan thought he would arrive at the seemingly inevitable point of admiration for the man he had sworn so vehemently against a few years before. If he had been able to ask his younger self, _How do you envision your relationship with this man?_ It would be almost certainly true to imagine that the reply would not be anywhere along the lines of, laughing with, talking with, drinking with, finding comfort with—learning who you are with. Like Emma, Killian Jones had found his way into their lives and changed them for the better. Unlike Emma, who had been given little choice in the matter, as she had been small, vulnerable and directionless, Killian had been almost nearly grown on their metaphorical doorstep. He had somewhat loudly arrived, had been made to feel unwanted, could have just as easily left; only he had clung to their obstinance with all the strength of a man at the edge of a cliff.

He had fought for them, just as Emma had fought for him to stay. Just as David had fought, to his own, subdued surprise, for the tense cords of Killian’s deceptively vulnerable heart, wrapped and knotted around his sister’s own strong, formidable hands. They were perfect for one another. Similar enough to understand the cracks in one another’s foundation, but different enough that they could force the other to grow, to evolve into and around the other.

“When I asked you to give him a chance,” Emma playfully began, her lips resting against the tip of a bottle, “I didn’t mean ‘fall in love with him yourself.’” She’s joking, clearly, the gleam in her eye, the chuckle in her voice. And he’s knocking his shoulder against hers, and laughing easily along with the idea of the golden-eyed star of the wrestling team, buttoned-up and broad-shouldered _falling in love with_ the lithe, wild-eyed literature major with a tendency to fall on the black leather side of the fashion spectrum, but he can feel the tightening of the knot somewhere deep in his chest as they laugh together.

There’s an uncomfortable pressure there, deep within the cavity of his chest, because Emma is _clearly_ in love with Killian, just as he’s _clearly_ in love with her. There’s a tightness because, no, Emma had never suggested that he _fall in love with_ this lost, black sheep with a penchant for sad, Irish sea ballads; and there’s a strange, unknowable tightness because he doesn’t fully understand what this love _is_. Because it is love. And it might be an “in love,” but he doesn’t know with what, and he doesn’t know for how long, and he knows it’s a little different than the norm, and he knows he doesn’t want to lose it.

He knows that it’s Emma and Killian, that it always was and it always will be, and he knows that he’s also _in love with_ an absurdly small, fair-skinned, pixie-haired, elementary education major with a rough-and-tumble streak that ended with a raised scar somewhere along his otherwise untarnished jawline. He knows all of this. What he doesn’t know is what to make of that Saturday night in late February, still cold, still snowing; all of them falling back into the familiar habits of the post-break college student.

There had been booze that night, of course, copious amounts of it, given the fuzziness of his memory the following morning. From what he could remember, it had been one of those nights devoid of any sense of unpleasantness. They were all stressed, over-worked, underpaid, cold and tired, but they were together. They were full of greasy bar food, they were wrapped in one another’s scarves and sweaters and arms. They were honest and playful, and all of their insecurities about themselves or one another had been forgotten, at least temporarily, in the warm nest of Killian and Robin’s two-bedroom apartment.

It had been late, he remembered that much. Emma and Mary Margaret had, at some point, slunk away towards Killian’s bedroom to crash, their arms threaded through each other’s in order to steady their drunken, lumbering steps. Robin was awake but just barely, his head thrown back over the couch, various limbs askew—Killian had dropped a blanket over his still, quiet form, and Ruby had made some crack about being a mom, to which Killian had tossed a pillow at her smiling face.

“I’m not tired,” Belle mentioned offhand, her stockinged feet resting in Ruby’s lap, “Can we play a game?”

“No more drinking,” Robin mumbled from beneath the quilt, one eye cracked open, “The drinking is over.”

“Agreed,” David answered, his own head slightly gummy from all the scotch ale that Killian had kept insisting he drink, “I don’t know how I’m supposed to get up for practice in the morning.”

“That’s the trick, Dave,” Killian spoke from over his shoulder, his voice growing louder as he took a clumsy seat at his side, another cold beer in hand, “You don’t.”

“Don’t get up or don’t go to practice?”

“Either one, I’m sure,” he answered with a wink, his dark eyeliner long since smudged and faded beneath impossibly blue eyes.

“What kind of game, babe?” Ruby asked Belle gently, running a hand through her thick, tangled hair. “Nothing that requires too much effort, _please_.”

David must have lost track of the conversation at that point, because the only thing he could remember following Ruby’s soft question was a large, empty wine bottle spinning wildly in front of him, lots of giggling, and the sudden, indescribable feeling of Killian Jones’ mouth pressed against his own.

—

“He’s bi,” he can remember Emma casually explaining, her cheeks round with donuts and hot chocolate, “No big deal.”

It’s not like he had been offended at the thought of Killian being romantically involved with a man, it had just been unexpected, what with his being in love with _Emma_ and all. But he supposed the guy couldn’t wait around forever, eyes the size of dinner plates, heart thumping comically loud whenever she was in the room. 

He had seen him loitering outside the Humanities building, per usual, a half-smoked cigarette dangling from his fingers, all normal, until he followed Killian’s familiar, charming gaze to the enamored, upturned face of a guy in his fiction-writing class—Merlin, possibly—a quiet, polite student by all accounts. They made a strange picture, the two of them. Merlin dressed in his usual buttoned-up flannel and woolen cardigan, square frames perched on his nose. And then there had been Killian, adorned in the usual black leather jacket, dark, well-worn denim and boots. Despite being fairly thin and of average height, he certainly knew how to take up space.

There was something enticingly dangerous about the whole thing, the way Killian had rested his arm near Merlin’s head, a flirtatious smirk cutting dangerously across his face. David had known Killian pretty well at that point, not well enough to know about his other proclivities, clearly, but well enough to know that most of… _this?_ Most of it was an act. A way to throw people off the scent of his softer, “weaker” parts.

Maybe it hadn’t been the fact of Merlin’s maleness that had thrown him off. Maybe it had been the performance; maybe he didn’t realize how well he knew Killian until he had been forced to see the act again, to see the rough facade of a boy with a too-fragile heart so expertly put forth in the face of those he did not know.

“No big deal,” David had reassured his sister, smiling at the small dollop of whipped cream on her nose, “Just wondering.”

—

He tasted like scotch, but that wasn’t very surprising. He smelled vaguely of sweat and the sweet, cloying scent of a cologne that only men of a certain age seemed to wear. He was patient, and soft, and it lasted… seconds. It was brief, and chaste, and somehow both exactly like he expected and nothing like he had ever imagined. Which wasn’t to say that he had spent hours thinking about what kissing Killian Jones might be like, only he _had_ spent a good deal of time wondering what being loved by him might be like.

Because he saw the way he looked at Emma, loved Emma, and David knew that it was exactly what she deserved. To be loved, unconditionally, to be seen and known for who she is, and not what Killian or David or his parents _wanted_ her to be. David knew he was a fairly simple guy—he hadn’t had it too rough growing up, had met most, if not all, of his parents expectations. Got good grades, performed well in sports; practical, patient, kind, all the things that they had hoped he would be. 

Killian Jones was _nothing_ like what _anyone_ thought he could be. His parents hadn’t expected much of him (seeing as how they had abandoned him as a child), his brother had wanted grand, great things for him, but, as Killian had explained, “Bloody well buggered that up, didn’t I?” David had anticipated low, incorrigible things from him. Had seen the potential for his corruptive influence on Emma, Robin, Mary Margaret, all of these people he had come to love as he did his own family—Killian Jones would ruin all that, just as he had his own life. 

Only he wanted _so badly_ to be loved.

And David knew how to love. So well, in fact, that it was often too much and too hard, and it only left him feeling disappointed. And suddenly there was this boy, who became this man; this man who could live in a way that David never could, but who seemed to walk around as if there was an emptiness inside of him that he didn’t know how to fill—and it made David _want_. It made him want things for himself that he might’ve never tried to obtain for himself otherwise.

It had made the taste of Killian’s lips all the more sweet in the brief moment of time in which they touched. It happened so fast he almost missed it. But lying on top of Robin’s empty bed the next morning, the sound of Ruby and Belle lightly snoring from their place curled up on the floor, the briefness of their kiss had been charged and slow. In his memory it is warm and rough from the unshaven hairs of Killian’s chin. It is masculine and delicate in a way that only Killian Jones would know how to be.

“Wow,” Ruby seems to sigh from somewhere to his left, his eyes closed because his lids have become impossibly heavy in the last few moments (and a little bit because he’s too afraid to open them).

“Um,” David eloquently tries to begin, his mouth falling slightly open in somewhat of an awed expression. He can’t help but think he looks a might similar to Merlin in this moment, his own facade, that of the popular, well-liked, polite jock thrown carelessly to the breeze by the mere fact of Killian Jones and the gentleness of his scotch-flavored kiss.

“Don’t be so quick to offer critique now, Dave,” Killian says quietly, laughingly, his own arm coming up to swing around David’s shoulders, “I’ve had a bit much to drink tonight and it would be poor form to judge my performance based solely on the one-off.”

“No, uh,” he tries to reassure him, slowly, in a meandering voice that he’s having a hard time placing despite the fact that it’s his own, “I would never.”

“There’s a good man,” Killian replies happily, tugging him closer in order to place a wet, sloppy kiss against the side of his head, “So bloody charming, this one.”


End file.
